The January 2021 issue opens with a vivid account from Bruce Thomas, a FedEx B757 captain who learned to fly gliders as a teenager at the Warrenton Soaring Center, describing the moment his jet crossed a ridge beneath a lenticular cloud and the autothrottles dropped to idle as the aircraft climbed on pure lift—260 knots, nose down, soaring. The issue also features William O. Bank's in-depth comparison of spin-entry sensations in a Navy T28C versus a French ASK13 glider, with practical advice on using the Condor 2 simulator and VR headsets to build spin-recovery muscle memory. Erik van Weezendonk, a Marine battalion commander, shares a 2004 memory of a glider ride at Twentynine Palms that reminded him of the simple freedom of soaring, and looks hopefully toward a 2021 season at KFRR. Joel D. Hough, a CFIG with the Skyline and Pittsburgh Soaring Clubs, provides a detailed first-person account of his long-hauler COVID-19 recovery—from a 27-watt bike trainer in May back to solo flights and instruction by November—along with a 19-point appendix on pacing, breathing exercises, and monitoring. Jim Kellett closes with the club's 2021 season policy on masks, sanitizing, and personal risk assessment, noting that no mitigation is 100% effective and urging members to make informed decisions. The virtual 2021 Annual Meeting is set for Saturday, January 30.
February 2021 issue of the Skyline Soaring Club newsletter. The standout feature is Ron Wagner's remarkable personal account of meeting and flying seven U.S. Presidents over a career spanning from a 1972 ROTC visit to see Nixon at Tulsa to watching Biden's inauguration from his living room in January 2021. Wagner, a former USAF pilot at Andrews Air Force Base and later an Eastern Air Lines captain, recounts touching Air Force One under its wing as a young trainee, ferrying a newly returned Nixon, flying Bush 41 and Barbara Bush, performing the ramp meet-and-greet for Carter, and shuttling Trump between Washington and New York before the airline's demise. The issue also carries Kip Ongstead's reflective first-year report on transitioning from a freshly earned private certificate to club single-seaters (Sprite and Discus) and planning cross-country training, and Marcelo Morichi's charming essay "Stay in the Center Lane," which weaves together ASK 21 landing technique, triathlon swimming, and track running under one unifying metaphor. The club also announced the election of Erik von Weezendonk and Stephanie Zilora to the Board of Directors and Zilora's selection as Club President, succeeding Jim Kellett, at the January 30 annual meeting.
Skyline Soaring Club member Hugh McElrath recounts a 700-nautical-mile, six-hour solo tour in a Pipistrel motorglider from College Park, Maryland, to Groveland, Florida, complete with punishing headwinds that reduced his ground speed to 27 knots on final, a controller's warning about 1,500-foot antenna farms, a spoon-fed yogurt at 63 knots over the Georgia coast, and a tense low-level detour around the Okefenokee swamp. The issue also features a tribute to the Women Army Service Pilots of World War II through the lens of Jacqueline Cochran and Nancy Harkness Love, a passionate open letter urging members to show up early, pitch in at Week of Training, and treat the club as a community rather than a commercial operation, and the transition of the Safety Officer role to Ron Wagner with a new three-person Safety Team. The Board reports on the club's 30th-anniversary planning for November 2021, new badge accomplishments across the membership, the adoption of electronic payments, and the opening of the 2021 flying season on March 14.
The April 2021 issue opens with Hugh McElrath's vivid, self-deprecating account of learning to aerotow hang gliders in a Bailey-Moyes Dragonfly at Blue Sky Hang-gliding near Richmond, Virginia, where his instructor Bobby Bailey treats the runway like an aerobatic stage and the 70-year-old towpilot screams from the grass. New Safety Committee member Allison Diaz introduces herself as a 12-year NTSB air safety investigator who, despite growing up in Northern California's soaring country, didn't take up gliders until 2019. William O. Bank delivers a surprisingly deep physiological essay on
This May 2021 issue of the Skyline Soaring Club newsletter carries a bittersweet tone, opening with the passing of James D. (Kit) Carson, a founding member and the club's first Chief Towpilot, a career Air Force pilot who flew multi-engine aircraft across the world before becoming a fixture at Front Royal. The Board also honored long-time member Bill Burner with Emeritus status and began planning the club's 30th anniversary celebration for November. On the growth front, the newsletter reports 44 individuals waiting to join as student pilots, 25 students already on the membership list, and the addition of Allison Diaz as the club's newest flight instructor. Upcoming events include a cross-country training day from KFRR to Burner Field on May 7 and a Spring Family Day at the Burners' Woodstock air strip on May 29. The issue also features Bill Burner's emergency-parachute presentation set for publication in Soaring Magazine, a detailed interview with Austrian glider pilot Uwe Jetmar (who logged a 3-hour-36-minute Discus flight to 7,900 MSL in April), a heartfelt farewell from Kip Ongstad before his move to Phoenix, and Board updates on tow-rope tensile testing, medical-requirement changes for tow pilots, and evolving COVID-19 guidance for two-seat flights.
President Stephanie Zilora rallies the membership for the Week of Training, June 21–25 at Front Royal (KFRR), urging even non-students to show up for the camaraderie, campfires, and mentorship that make a full week of soaring unforgettable. The issue also carries a tender farewell to Marvin Holland, a long-time Cumberland Soaring CFI and DPE who examined generations of Skyline members, who made his final glide in early May; a poem titled "Last Flight" accompanies the notice. On the achievement front, Tom Ward retrieved the Boomerang trophy from Merlin Aerodrome in Amelia, Virginia on May 15, adding his name to a distinguished list that includes Shane Neitzey (seven times) and others. A short sidebar reveals that FBO Rock Skowbo's Piper U-3A on the ramp once served as the chase plane guiding a U-2 spyplane to landing. A lengthy "Meet Your Fellow Club Member" profile introduces Gregory Ellis, a 1967 student from California who cycled twenty miles to his first lessons, holds Silver Distance, Silver Duration, and Gold Altitude badges, and whose wife Miriam has organized the club's anniversary celebrations for decades. Jim Garrison closes with practical navigation tips for the SSA's new website and its still-active legacy site.
The July 2021 issue of the Skyline Soaring Club newsletter is a rich blend of wartime aviation history and hard-won operational lessons. Jim Perlmutter reviews J. Norman Grim's *To Fly the Gentle Giants*, a detailed account of how the U.S. military trained glider pilots in World War II, from Harris Hill, New York, to the mass production of nearly 14,000 Waco CG-4As by contractors as diverse as Singer Sewing and Steinway Piano. William O. Bank contributes a lesser-known chapter of that same war: the invention of 100-octane aviation gasoline by chemist Tim Palucka at a Sun Oil refinery near Beaumont, Texas, a breakthrough that made Spitfires 34 mph faster and turned the air war over Europe. On the operational side, Andrew Neilson recounts a tense Week of Training at the uncontrolled Front Royal field, including a C-172 pilot who misread a sectional chart's right-hand-traffic asterisk, a Navion screaming in at 140 knots with no radio calls, and a Piper Cub that refused to yield to a landing glider. Marcelo Morichi describes the club's first Week of Training held at Front Royal itself, capped by a spectacular evening of unused burritos, craft beers, and a full moon illuminating the Blue Ridge Mountains. The issue also features a detailed interview with member Peter Ross, a former Leningrad native who took his first FAST flight in 2016 and surprised his father with a passenger ride in 2018; a listing for a 1984 Rolladen-Schneider LS-4 (N370JS) available by half-share; board highlights covering a spirited debate over tow-pilot medical requirements, a 30th-anniversary celebration survey, and recognition of members Tom Ward, Andrew Neilson, and Richard Good for their contributions to the club.
This August 2021 issue of the Skyline Soaring Club newsletter is headlined by Rob Jacobsen's gripping first-person account of a landout in a narrow 912-foot field in Fort Valley, complete with a tree line, a power line, and a cleanup crew that arrived in twenty minutes. Jacobsen pairs the story with a practical tutorial on how to pre-select fields, plan approaches, and fly the airplane when the moment comes. The issue also celebrates the club's successful Week of Training, which produced numerous student flights and a strong financial result, and marks the first solo of young Caleb Smith, signed off by CFI Piet Barber on July 18. Ron Wagner contributes a handy "Rule of Sixths" method for estimating crosswind components in the cockpit, Joel Hough recounts a challenging hour of weak lift and careful thermal hunting on July 5, and Marcelo Morichi sits down with member Richard Good for a wide-ranging interview spanning his marine-engineering career, his path from England to South Africa to Canada to Virginia, and his gliding bucket list that includes six continents.
The September 2021 issue of the Skyline Soaring Club newsletter carries a deeply personal tribute to Mathew Michael Linger, a young man whose life was profoundly shaped by the club's mentorship. A 2012 SSEF scholarship recipient who overcame homelessness and autism to earn his solo on July 3, 2016, Matt's story stands as one of the club's most moving testaments to the transformative power of flight instruction and community care. The issue also features a vivid "Meet Your Fellow Member" interview with Syed Ali, a Karachi-born engineering lead who recounts a thrilling October 2016 wave flight to 10,800 feet with Bob Sallada in a GROB 103-B, a harrowing near-stall close call in the club SGS 1-36, and his path from YouTube soaring videos to private glider rating. Additional content includes Jim Perlmutter's review of Winston Groom's *The Aviators*, August kudos for tow-rope steward Joel Hough and 15-year-old solo pilot Caleb Smith, and a welcome-back note from Robb Hohmann after a near-decade absence from the Front Royal field.
The October 2021 issue of the Skyline Soaring Club newsletter leads with a gripping safety account of an RV-6 crash in which two experienced pilots each assumed the other was flying, resulting in a near-ground impact and a final nose-over into a soybean field. The issue also celebrates the September Week of Training at Petersburg, where Piet and Chris Norris logged over 95 instructional flights and eight pilots earned winch endorsements; chronicles the 51-minute first soaring flight of Dee, a former NASA employee resuming aviation after decades away; profiles member Hugh McElrath, a 30-year naval intelligence officer whose first date with his wife was a Supercub flight over Vesuvius; and details Board actions including a 70% member vote to replace the club's Sprite with a PW-5, the postponement of the 30th Anniversary celebration to spring 2022, and ongoing efforts to formalize the Front Royal traffic pattern to keep gliders and powered aircraft on opposite sides of the field.
The November 2021 issue is anchored by two extraordinary first-person accounts of October 17, 2021, a day when favorable wave and ridge conditions at Front Royal produced back-to-back major achievements: JP Stewart earned his Diamond Altitude Badge with a 16,404-foot gain, threading the Massanutten ridge and catching a persistent wave, while Shane Neitzey completed a 96-mile Boomerang flight to Merlin Soaring in Amelia, Virginia, scrubbing off 3,000 feet in a lazy spoiler spiral for a spectacular view of the landing field. The issue also features a reflective "QQ Ballast" column by William O. Bank on the pilot-passenger communication dynamic, an update on the FAA's revised transponder code guidance for gliders (12002 at all times), and a "Meet the Member" profile of Rob Jacobsen, a physicist and former BAE Systems R&D director who added his glider rating in 2019 and once flew a Pitts S-1E in IAC Unlimited competition. Rounding out the issue are AOPA recognition of Ken Ring as a top Eastern Region flight instructor, a call for the club's first annual tow rope meeting, holiday merchandise ordering tips, and a lighthearted plug from member Ron Wagner for a serialized science-fiction novel set in the year 2218.
The December 2021 issue opens with a moving tribute to Ryan Trexel, a 2017 SSEF Scholarship winner who passed away in April 2020 at an untimely age. On what would have been his nineteenth birthday, his parents, grandparents, and brother gathered at the field to watch operations and remember the joy Ryan found in flying with the club, while his grandfather Ralph Sharpe continues to support the Ryan Trexel Memorial Scholarship. Beyond the memorial, the newsletter captures a Skyline Soaring Club in vigorous growth: 104 members, forty prospective students on the wait list, and a unanimous Board vote to pay off the ASK-21 member loan and pursue the purchase of a PW-5 glider in San Antonio. November brought a pair of newly rated pilots, including sixteen-year-old Caleb Smith, dubbed the youngest rated glider pilot in the United States at the time, and a volunteer crew that brought the Discus back to the flight line for under a thousand dollars.